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Meet Our Judges

2017 AAAwards Judges

Ken Wheaton
Editor, Advertising Age

Ken Wheaton was born in Opelousas, Louisiana, and raised deep in the heart of Cajun Country. He is the author of “The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival,” “Bacon and Egg Man” and “Sweet as Cane, Salty as Tears.”

Most recently the editor of Advertising Age, Wheaton lives deep in the heart of Brooklyn – Bay Ridge, to be exact – with his wife Cara (also from Louisiana) and two tiny poodles. He’s been a Pushcart nominee for fiction, a finalist for the Jesse H. Neal Awards for commentary and recipient of the Crain Communications Award for Best Commentary. In his Advertising Age role, he has appeared on CBS This Morning, The Katie Couric Show, CNN, Fox News, Bloomberg TV and a number of radio networks discussing everything from political marketing to Super Bowl ads.

Wheaton will put his gumbo up against anyone in New York and maybe even few people in Louisiana. He’s also a certified barbecue judge.

Wheaton is a graduate of Long Island University--Southampon and has a masters in creative writing from University of Louisiana at Lafayette (which he still calls USL). While he lives in New York, most of his family, including 18-year-old son Nick, live in Louisiana and he returns there frequently.

Tim Cawley
Chief Creative Officer, Sleek Machine

Tim Cawley is Co-Founder and CCO of Sleek Machine in Boston, with prior agency jobs at Mullen, Hill Holliday, Y&R and Carmichael Lynch. Tim’s portfolio includes campaigns for Major League Baseball, Century 21, Lawn Doctor, Indeed.com, JetBlue, Dunkin’ Donuts, Miller Lite and Toys R’ Us. His work has been recognized dozens of times, in every major award show, with recent medals at One Show (which he judged in 2013 and 2015), Cannes, Clio, Webbys, Andys, and Best of Show at the New England Hatch Awards. He’s been interviewed in AdWeek, AdAge, Creative Review UK, Communication Arts and FastCompany. Lurzer’s Archive ranks him as one of the top ten U.S. writers of all time.

Joel Clement
Creative Director, McGarrah Jessee

Of French-Canadian descent, Joel Clement feels honored to judge in Acadiana. His forefathers had migrated from France to Canada to New Hampshire where he was born. Nomadism continued in him, and he went to study at SVA in NYC, graduating with the top ranked portfolio.

He packed up and went to learn the craft of art direction at Carmichael Lynch in Minneapolis. Winter proving too brutal, he headed to Goodby Silverstein & Partners where he won the $100,000 Athena Grand Prize for an H-P campaign ($22k after taxes and sharing) and San Francisco’s Art Director of the Year Award for his work on Nike.

Standing at the edge of the Pacific, Joel realized that to continue his journey he’d have to board a plane. It landed in Singapore where he took up the Regional Head of Art position for Saatchi & Saatchi Asia. He won nine Cannes Lions, as many Clios, Network of the Year, and countless other awards, all while mentoring creatives from India to Indonesia and every country in between.

On a trip back to judge The One Show in 2014, America now seemed quite exotic, and that is how Joel ended up at McGarrah Jessee in Austin, just a tiny voyage away from Lafayette.